If you wish to push it down even further, you can increase the strut to the height you want with \rule{0pt}{<height>} where you specify <height>. \strut has a <height> of .7\baselineskip (and is therefore font-dependent).

Horizontal adjustment is possible using \rule{<width>}{0pt}. \, inserts a horizontal space of width \thinskipamount. Using \hspace*{<width>} would also work.

The following example defines and uses \padbox that adds a padding using \fbox with an invisible border (rule width set to zero). Also care is taken, that \fbox is working within the argument of \padbox. This way the text is surrounded with white space on all sides and avoids the clashing into any border of the dash box. The padding can be configured by setting the length \padboxsep. It is initialized with the value of \fboxsep.